BOM Launches ‘No-Selfie’ Zones After Deaths

The selfie craze is no longer
a joke. As people stare into their cell phones and capture their own images at
arm’s length, they are falling off cliffs, down stairs and being gored by
animals.

In India’s Mumbai, the death
of an 18 yr. old woman, who drowned after she and her 2 companions toppled into
the sea while taking a selfie last week, has prompted police to erect prominent
selfie warnings at potentially hazardous spots popular with tourists.

Police in the Indian city of
Mumbai have identified 15 places where taking selfies “can be dangerous,” the
BBC reported.

The incident involving the 3
women falling into the sea received much publicity because a heroic male
passer-by jumped in and helped save the other 2 women – only to then be swept
away himself to drown. His body was found a day later but the body of the
female victim has not been found.

Selfie warnings will be
erected on Mumbai’s iconic sea-facing Marine Drive promenade and on popular
Girgaum Chowpatty beach, both major tourist attractions, along with other
places in the city popular with tourists, including Bandra Bandstand, Sion Fort
and Worli Fort.

Last year, authorities
imposed a no-selfie zone at a Hindu festival to avoid deadly stampedes. When
people stop to take pictures of themselves, it slows down the flow of devotees
and bottlenecks form quickly. Stampedes have killed dozens. Signs saying “no selfie
zone” stand at Mumbai’s 2 festival sites.

In September a Japanese
tourist died at the Taj Mahal in Agra after allegedly slipping down the stairs
while taking a selfie.

Internationally, the list of
selfie deaths and injuries is growing. In October, a tourist toppled into a
geyser while taking a photograph in northern Chile. A month earlier, a
Melbourne woman died in Norway after falling from the Troll’s Tongue, a popular
tourist attraction in the mountains, while posing for a photo.

A couple of weeks before
that, a man was taking a selfie at the annual running of the bulls festival in
the Spanish town of Villaseca de la Sagra when a bull rushed up and gored him
to death.

In May, a 21 yr. old
Singaporean man plunged to his death from a cliff while trying to take a selfie
on an island off the coast of Bali. In the same month, a 21 yr. old Moscow
woman survived accidentally shooting herself in the head while posing for a
selfie with a loaded automatic pistol left on a desk by a security guard.

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